A grooming gang survivor has said she does not believe the national inquiry wants to look into the ethnicity of the perpetrators or the public services involved.

Speaking on GB News Fiona Goddard said: “They asked to sign a confidential agreement which centres around survivors’ anonymity and making sure that their opinions were protected. So we all agreed with that, because survivors’ anonymity is really important.

“And we signed it, but then it has slowly developed into them telling us not to disclose any impressions we’ve got, any material we were given of anything like basically anything by the end of it. We weren’t allowed to talk about anything to anyone.

“So one of the things I pointed out in my letter, was during the trial of the men that abused me, the judge actually questions every single potential jury member on any type of connection that had to police forces, social care of any kind.

“Anyone, even a teacher, because they worked hand in hand with social services, were removed from the jury because of bias. So I don’t understand how, in this inquiry, that hasn’t also come into play.

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“These people both worked in the public sectors; two of the most important public sectors to be investigated, during the periods of time that this scandal is going to be looking at.

“I just don’t understand how they were even considered for their role.

“They gave us pointers on what we should consider asking. I’ve said that we were supposed to basically be able to prepare these candidates for what questions we want to ask them. They will have time to prepare any answers.

“They said that they were doing it to try and stop any overlapping questions, but I think that was just an excuse so then the candidates could prepare themselves.

“There are huge concerns over them trying to expand the scope. They’re asking us whether it should be a grooming gang inquiry, or if the scope should be broadened to cover other aspects of child sexual exploitation or abuse.

“The fear is broadening the scope is going to water down any kind of data we get, whether that’s ethnicity or even in relation to accountability of the Councils of this specific type of crime.

“It is just going to water it down. The fear is we’re going to end up with another IICSA. The scope is going to be too broad, and we’re not going to get to the root cause of any issue.

“I don’t think they want to, not just deal with the issue of the ethnicities of the men, but the huge failings from the services. They try and make it out like it was just a mistake or a misunderstanding, and it wasn’t. It was corruption. That’s what it was, it was intentional decisions to let these men abuse us.

“No one would have possibly not understood that a child was being abused, that they knew what was happening, and they chose to turn a blind eye.

“London most definitely has a grooming gang issue. The grooming gangs work through the same networks that gun trafficking and drug trafficking work through, which London is a central position. So is Bradford. That’s why Bradford has such a bad issue with it.

“There’s no way that Sadiq Khan doesn’t have any idea if there’s grooming guns in London. He’s absolutely fooling himself to try and even suggest that, and I can imagine the scale in London is going to be huge.”